Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-v5vhk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-06-20T04:12:16.365Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

3 - The Convention of “Unhappy Memory”

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 March 2023

Get access

Summary

The history of the Polish Singers Alliance should be understood within the context of the fraternal infighting between the Polish National Alliance and the Polish Roman Catholic Union and the subsequent organizational fractionalization of the immigrant community. The stakes in these polemical wars and organizational splits, which continued through the 1890s and into the first decade of the twentieth century, were high. The participants championed different definitions of Polishness in the debate over “God” and the “Fatherland,” attempting to inculcate into the immigrants’ consciousness their particular version of a Polish national identity. What was at stake was leadership of the growing immigrant community and control over its organizational life. During these two decades, both the Catholic religious leaders and secular nationalists advanced proposals to unify the community's organizational leadership. While every effort eventually foundered, the PNA's attempts to unify American Polonia under its aegis belong as well to the history of the Polish Singers Alliance.

The PNA sought direct control over other immigrant organizations and attempted to achieve this by infiltrating their staffs. Among the primary targets were the Falcons, the Young Men's Alliance, and the Polish Singers Alliance. In each instance, there existed a fairly extensive network of leading officers and activists who belonged to both the PNA and the targeted organization. As mentioned earlier, the Małłek brothers, Maksymiljan Kucera, and Teodor Heliński were but a few of the individuals who held high office in both the PNA and the PSAA. And as the turn of the century approached, the PNA advocated merging the Falcons, the Young Men's Alliance, and the Polish Singers Alliance as constituent parts of the PNA. Ironically, these discussions occurred when the PSAA itself was afflicted with Polonia factionalism and a house divided.

As the PSAA neared the end of its first decade, the singers movement experienced difficulties and internal tensions. In an article about “national song” in Zgoda [Accord], the organ of the Polish National Alliance, Zygmunt Perłowski of Chicago's Moniuszko Choir voiced his worries. Perłowski complained about poor support and popular indifference toward the choral societies, and, in the name of patriotism, “made bold” to appeal to his “brothers” [bracia] not to neglect “the cultivation of our national song.”

Type
Chapter
Information
Publisher: Boydell & Brewer
Print publication year: 2005

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×